Summary of a Scientific Article

Angelica Langford
March 8th, 2015

Isolations of Salmonella from Wild Turkeys in Florida

This research is to show signs of Salmonella bacteria in Wild Turkeys. According to
Mayo Clinic, Salmonella bacteria typically live in animal and human intestines and are shed
through feces. Humans become infected most frequently through contaminated water or food.
Typically, people with salmonella infection have no symptoms. Others develop diarrhea, fever
and abdominal cramps within eight to 72 hours. Most healthy people recover within a few days
without specific treatment.
Scientists were trying to determine if there were Salmonella bacteria in certain wild
turkeys in Florida. In some cases, wild turkeys were infected whereas in others some werent.
These scientist were wondering why this was happening, and if we could do anything to stop this
from infecting our turkey meat that we consume.
They predicted it wasnt just the Florida area, and they were right. It was all over the
southeastern states and Texas. They had a lot of information on other diseases of the birds, such
as viruses, helminths, and blood protozoans, but they had very little information on why these
birds had Salmonella. They predicted that this phenomena was due to environmental factors such
as the water they drink or the food these turkeys were eating, but they didnt have enough
information to specify.

They did multiple experiments on these birds in order to answer these questions, and
came up with very little results. They did a ten-year study on these wild turkeys in Florida,
comparing them to turkeys found in Texas. Salmonella bacteria were isolated from 18 out of 411
wild turkeys and examined. Five juvenile birds, and one that was only ten days old were part of
the 18.
They used an isolation technique that included 18 turkeys that Salmonella was isolated
from, and they did the other experiments on 393 turkeys that the Salmonella wasnt isolated
from. The experimental group was the 18 turkeys that salmonella was extracted and examined.
The birds were available for bacteriologic culture as a result of their capture for various
management and disease studies. The livers from 262 turkeys were cultured on a sheep blood
agar plate, which is a Petri dish that contains a growth medium (typically agar plus nutrients)
used to culture microorganisms or small plants, and cooked. In 12 cases the spleen and lungs also
were cultured. Large intestinal contents, and cloacal (opening that serves as the only opening for
the intestinal, reproductive, and urinary tracts of certain animal species.) swabs from the
remainder of the birds were cultured. In addition, fecal samples were obtained from 53 mixedbreed cattle on the same range as the turkeys. All Salmonella isolates were analyzed by the
Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratories at the National Animal Disease Center in Ames, Iowa.
The results were efficient, but with small notice on what they should do next. Ten
different types of Salmonella were isolated, with Salmonella typhimurium most frequently found.
They mostly used contents of the large intestine, but there were some from the liver and spleen
as well as the small intestine of a bird. This Salmonella presence could have resulted from postmortem (after death) invasion. Since fresh tissues were not available for accurate disease
examinations, they were limited to describing these Salmonella isolations as carrier type (one

who harbors disease organisms in their body without manifest symptoms, thus acting as a
distributor of infection.) infections only. However, these findings suggest that at least the
potential for active salmonellosis in wild turkeys in Florida exists, i.e., carrier birds and a
comparatively large susceptible population. This means that some of the turkeys in Florida were
already carrier types for Salmonella typhimurium, but some turkeys in Florida are contracting
Salmonella typhimurium after death. Salmonella typhimurium is a pathogenic bacteria
predominantly found in the intestinal lumen. Salmonella typhimurium causes gastroenteritis in
humans and other mammals. This means that salmonella is found in turkeys in Florida and can
cause harm. This study was done over a ten year course and therefore, the evidence could have
changed a bit as time went on.
The conclusion is that these turkeys are either carrying the disease themselves, or
contracting it after death. We should be careful about the turkeys that we use for cured meats and
Thanksgiving dinner. That turkey may have had Salmonella and cause some major
gastroenteritis!